Humility and Persistence

10-28-18 (Proper 25B, Semi-Continuous)  

Job 42:1–6,10–17; Mark 10:46–52    

Humility and Persistence

As the World Series has been going on and making history in our midst with the longest playoff game ever played, it’s perhaps fitting to turn to baseball metaphors as we look at today’s passage in Mark.  Bartimaeus is a man who has stepped up to bat with three strikes already against him.  His first strike is that he is a blind man.  Second strike: he is a beggar. His third strike is that the name Bartimaeus literally means son of the defiled/unclean. Whether his parents were just really out of good ideas to name their child, or whether this was possibly a name by which this man was just known around town, the text doesn’t tell us.  But what we do know is that this man was about as far on the outskirts of society as a person could be - the only thing that would have been worse is if he had been a Samaritan on top of everything else. Anyway - this man Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is coming through town, and then hears the crowd that constantly surrounds Jesus as they draw near.  And before we continue this story, it’s interesting to take note that the text mentions that Jesus makes a quick stop in Jericho.  And when I say quick, I mean quick. He is there so long that if you sneezed during the reading, you likely missed him even being there. This is surprising in it’s own way: Jericho is the oldest city in the world, the city where the Israelites entered the promised land, the city of Joshua, of Rahab, of Herod’s winter palace, where the Romans would have been very present during Jesus’ day - and yet, despite all of the political, historical and theological high points of Jericho, in the end that city doesn’t even matter to the story except as a quick place-setting. What actually matters is this thrice-cursed Bartimaeus. 

Why is this blind man so important? First, notice what this man does. Bartimaeus Calls out to Jesus. He calls Jesus the “Son of David.” He doesn’t call him Jesus, he calls him the son of David. This is crucial because up until this point, the only people that have known and understands Jesus true identity are the demons that Jesus casts out, and the children. Now we have an outcast of the highest caliber calling Jesus by the intimate title of Son of David. It gives the man a bit of a “Well pay attention to me, Jesus feeling”. Yet what happens? The people around Bartimaeus, and the disciples do exactly what they are known for, they try to silence the man. To keep him quiet because yet again, they just don’t understand what is going on. So Bartimaeus, this three strikes-you’re-out nobody, gets quiet- right? That would be the smart thing to do. 

After all when Mark was written the Jewish community would have either been in the midst of the Jewish revolt or just after that revolt with Rome. The people would have been terrified that they might be killed for speaking out this radical message. They wanted to keep the peace, to know that they were safe, that they wouldn’t cause more problems for the government. This is sort of the same thing that we saw happen during the civil rights movement: many mainline churches kept trying to get Martin Luther King to calm down, to take a step down, to tone down his message so that the church and King himself didn’t get hurt for what he was saying.  We see it even today in our own church conversations, wishing for civility, for people to just stop with these protests and with this anger and frustration on every side. But both King and Bartimaeus show us that it is sometimes more important to raise our voices, even - and maybe especially - when others are telling us that we need to just be silent, because sometimes our voice is the only one that is the actual voice of reason and earnest faith in the midst of the chaos all around. Sometimes the voice that is silenced and that is not allowed to be heard is because it is the voice that the world needs to hear, and yet people are scared to hear that voice. Scared of what listening to that voice might mean to them and to the world around them. But what would have happened if King had remained silent? Would the civil rights movement have taken another 50 years to take affect, would we still be fighting for it? What if Bartimaeus had remained silent?

We are called to be counter-cultural as we hold what Jesus tells us against the status quo. We are called to be that voice of reason when it seems no one knows what is going on. Take a look at Job. In the midst of all Job’s trouble, he was still willing and able to speak directly to God with his anger and despair. Now it’s interesting that today when we return to Job that we find him in a total reversal. Instead of being down 10 kids, homeless, and without even two pennies to scrape together, Job suddenly has ten new kids and more wealth than he could possibly know what to do with!  This is a happy ending for Job, for sure… but at the same time, it’s one that often makes me pause to scratch my head.  Job is ultimately rewarded for his faithfulness, even though the majority of the book so far has been making the argument against this very kind of idea that God rewards the faithful and punishes the wicked.  It’s a puzzling ending, but Rev. Dr. Anna Grant-Henderson's commentary perhaps can help us with a different perspective.  She writes, “This book does not seek to answer the question why good people suffer or indeed, why the wicked appear to prosper. It can enable those people who are willing to enter into a relationship with God to have a sense of the mystery and power of God which may help in times of tragedy. God is there to shout at and to be present with us. As Christians we have an added advantage over Job, knowing God suffered through the incarnation of Jesus Christ and what it means to suffer. God does not govern by the principle of reward and retribution, but by a wisdom which is beyond human ken.”

As random as it seemed to have the book of Job in the middle of the lectionary this year, it seems that perhaps this was a timely text for us. Both for us in Vandalia as we remember the losses of loved ones, but also in our society as we watch the aftermath of natural disasters and recoil at continuing acts of terrorism, violence, and unbridled hatred transpiring in our own nation. We may never understand the knowledge of God, or know when something devastating is going to take place that will change our lives forever, but what is amazing about our faith is that regardless of what happens in our lives, and regardless of what is going on in our society, we do have the knowledge that Christ has suffered with us, and indeed, that he has ultimately defeated sin and death.  At the end of the day, we know that we can always turn to the hope of the resurrection. We have the hope that God still sits on the throne and will reign forever.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, quoting the 19th century theologian Theodore Parker, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” So we can just sit back and do nothing right? No we are called to be like Bartimaeus, like the great Reformer, Martin Luther, who we celebrate today, and like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who refused to be silenced. We are not called to be silent in the face of tragedy, injustice, and fear; we are called to stand up for the rights of one another, to raise our voices in the growing dissent and unrest, to speak truth to power and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are called to recognize our limitations, to recognize our prejudices, to recognize our weaknesses and to trust in Christ to lead us to be better, to overcome those obstacles as we allow ourselves to become more and more like the Savior we follow. We are not to remain silent, we aren’t to sit in despair in the ash heaps, rather we are to talk one on one with God and tell God our very hearts, our anger, or despair. 

We are never alone, even when it seems that we have no voice, that we are being silenced no matter what we do or say, we are not alone. We stand in the midst of a great community, and we stand united with one another and with the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us. Everything we do and say matters. The blind man refused to give up. He cried out louder when he was silenced. What happened when he did? He gained the Kingdom of heaven because he understood who exactly Jesus was. The disciples were still trying to figure it out. Yet this blind man, this man that had three strikes and was a part of the marginalized community, figured out who Jesus was. This man got it. What did he do with his knowledge? Did he stay on the sidelines and remain quiet? No he shouted louder and he became a front line follower of Christ. He became one of the loudest and strongest voices for the body of Christ. My prayer is that we might take the path that Bartimaeus and King have laid before us. That we may not allow our voices to be silenced but that we might go and be the loudest and strongest voices for the body of Christ where ever we go. To God be the Glory. Amen